Iowa City Today

Iowa City’s Office of Equity and Human Rights is pleased to present "The Boys of Baraka" with commentary and discussion by Dr. Stephanie DiPietro. This in-person program will be held on Wednesday, April 19, 2023, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the East Side Environmental Education Center, 2401 Scott Blvd., SE. There is no charge for the event, but registration is required.

"The Boys of Baraka" is an Emmy and NAACP Image award-winning film telling the story of “at risk” 12-year-old boys from inner-city Baltimore, who leave home to attend the 7th and 8th grade at Baraka, an experimental boarding school located in Kenya, East Africa. There, faced with a strict academic and disciplinary program as well as the freedom to be normal teenage boys, these brave kids began the daunting journey towards putting their lives on a fresh path. The film captures the kids’ amazing journey and how they fare when they are forced to return to the difficult realities of their city.

Stephanie DiPietro is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology and the Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Iowa. Dr. DiPietro’s research and teaching interests center on life course criminology, post-war adaptation among immigrant and refugee groups, and the relationships among race-ethnicity, crime, and criminal justice. DiPietro is the co-recipient of the W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship from the National Institute of Justice and the recipient of a J. William Fulbright Award. Her recent work appears in the journals Criminology, The British Journal of Criminology, The Annual Review of Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and The Sociological Quarterly. At the University of Maryland, she had the pleasure of teaching one of the young men featured in the film. The Office of Equity and Human Rights is grateful to both Dr. DiPietro and Loki Films for their generous support of this program.

How To Participate

Register here to reserve your seat. Attendance is limited to the first 50 registrants due to room capacity. Duplicate registrations will be deleted. Masks are encouraged, but not required. Hand sanitizer will be provided.

For questions or if you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please contact Kristin Watson at 319-356-5015 or KWatson@iowa-city.org. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time to meet your access needs.

Original source can be found here.